Until Monday...

Cheers to the weekend, guys! Hope you have a great Saturday/Sunday combo. The live in and I will be braving the rain and heading down to Corvallis to cheer on the OSU baseball team. Cross your fingers it doesn’t downpour on us.

Tonight we saw Jeff and Katie to celebrate her birthday. I'm glad we only live about an hour away from each other, but I do wish we lived even closer. I think I’d be at my brother’s house for dinner every night. Maybe soon…

Happy Birthday, Katie!

Postcards!

We don't really stick to one "style" in our loft...it's a little of this, a little of that.  Whenever possible we try and decorate with pieces that are meaningful to us...one of my favorite little items is this postcard stand my parents gave me many years ago.  It's filled with postcards people have sent to us, along with several we've picked up ourselves. 

Here's one of my favorite postcards.  I'll share more from my prized collection with you soon!  

   

Busted

Have any of you seen the movie, The Invention on Lying? Well, don’t. It’s a terrible movie. The live in and I picked it up from Red Box over the weekend. But, it did make me wonder…who invented “the cat nap”? That person is genius, and my personal hero. I know cat napping isn’t for everyone, but it certainly is for me.

Yesterday I snuck out of work a teeny bit early {work, please don’t be mad} to get in a good cat nap before I indulged in an evening pedicure/chat session with a girlfriend. I need 15 or 20 minutes minimum, but was shooting for 35-45 yesterday {it was Monday, after all}. However, when I got to the door of our loft I noticed it was unlocked…my live in was home early too.

He was on the phone with work, ESPN was on mute, and he had “changed” out of his suit into his tee shirt, trouser socks, and boxer briefs. We both exchanged looks. We were both busted.

Not exactly the perfect cat nap I had planned, but there is always this afternoon…

And if you know who invented the cat nap, please let me know so I can send them a thank you card.

Water Baby

I am uploading some of the photos I took of my sister's growing belly, and couldn't help but share this one with you.  I think it could be one of my favorite photos ever.  {See more here.} 

While we were in Hawaii the baby was kicking and punching like crazy.  My sister calls this "moving" but it felt more like a punch to me...

East Side

It’s been awhile since we’ve talked restaurants…

This weekend the live in and I have stuck to the east side for our going out / meal time fun.

We started at Lauro Kitchen Friday night, which was a new-to-us restaurant. We went with a group of friends, and although they were a little late seating us for our reservation, the food and drinks made up for it. The live in and I {along with several others} had the beef short ribs over mashed potatoes, which was excellent.

Only a few blocks down from Lauro Kitchen is the new Whiskey Soda Lounge {of Pok Pok fame}. Very cool atmosphere, fun drinks, and a great spot for hanging out.

{photos courtesy of Whiskey Soda Lounge}

Lastly, Bunk Sandwiches. I am embarrassed to say that yesterday was the first time the live in and I had been. It’s really good. Like, really good. Sure you have to wait in line for 30 minutes or so to get in, but you forget all about that once you’re inside gazing up at the chalk board menu full of mouth watering sandwiches. I went for the pulled pork {thanks for the recommendation} and the live in had the Italian cured meats. Neither of us wanted to share. And, as if they didn’t have me already, once we finished we cleared off our trays into a compostable bin…this made me very happy.

{photo courtesy of Bunk}

Some Pictures

Back Home

Well, I guess I’ve been kind of picture happy lately but I’ll post a few more vacation photos for you later. We’re back home at the loft now. And back to reality too, I suppose. Although, I have been telling my work mates that I’ll be quitting soon to move back to Kauai and become a part time surfer – part time coffee shop gal. No one believes me.

Needless to say, our trip was tops. The house we stayed in was gorgeous, the weather was near perfect, and the beaches were amazing. In case you’d like to see some of the amazing sand the beaches were filled with please just stop by our loft…as our floor is now covered with it…after the live in unpacked his four pairs of shoes (not including flip flops).

Speaking of the live in, we weren’t short on laughs while he was around. We voted, and our favorite live in moment was watching him being chased on the beach by a small dog.

The live in had decided to take a run on the beach one day while we were all hanging out. Emily, the first grade teacher, told him that if he ran over to the life guard station and back we’d time him. He fell for it like a first grader and took off running. We watched him until he was out of sight, and then went back to what we were doing. Several minutes later he came back into our sight but appeared to be running at almost a sprint. As he got closer we realized that he was indeed sprinting as a small dog ran after him barking and trying to nip at his heals. He must have realized he couldn’t out run the dog and proceeded to start running into the water. The small dog followed, so he ran further into the water. {Meanwhile the entire beach is watching this man being chased by a small Todo dog into the water.} This lasted several yards until the small dog let up and the live in made a bee line for safety. We were rolling over laughing…

Sad to Leave

We'll be leaving paradise and arriving back in Portland tomorrow evening.  I think the live in and I might start to cry as we board the plane...

My Pet Hammock

I am uploading today's photos off of one of my cameras {again}...my memory card is at max capacity {again}.  I think it's time to put another memory card on the shopping list...

Anyhoo, here are a few pictures for you.  I haven't really talked a lot about my hammock before, but it's like my pet.  It was a Christmas gift from my parents years ago and I've been dragging it around with me ever since.  There are very few places we go, that my hammock doesn't go.

p.s. The live in and I both curled up in the hammock together, but of course I was the one who had to exit and snap the photo.   

Farmer's Market Find

Have any of you had the fruit, rambutan?  I hadn't.  We picked up a few at the farmer's market and have been enjoying them ever since.  Once you break through their exotic looking exterior they taste like a sweet, tropical grape...

Just a Photo

I am uploading my photos from the day

and thought I'd share one with you. 

Can't stay long,

the live in is about to start leading his daily yoga session. 

The live in on vacay is priceless,

I will say that...

From Snow to Sun...

Happy early weekend, guys.

I’ll be taking a break from blogging for a few weeks. The live in and I are packing two suitcases tonight…we have back to back trips coming up! This weekend is our annual Sunriver getaway with friends. Then on Monday we’ll be driving back from Sunriver to catch a flight out to Kauai with my family.

We can’t wait for our pasty white NW faces to see some Hawaii sun…

Back to College...Voluntarily!?

My friends, guess what I am doing this week?

Speaking at the OSU career fair hosted by my college {which I don’t even know the current name for because they’ve changed it a million times since I graduated}. Yikes! When I graduated the department consisted of Apparel Design, Interior Design, Housing Design, and Merchandising Management. My degree is in the later. Anyhoo, that’s what I am doing.

Honestly, I think they asked me to do it because after going through the list of good students they learned that they all got fancy jobs in NYC or probably at Harrod’s in London, and I was the only one still living in Oregon and actually using her degree. Or, they could have asked me because I am probably their example of how you can go from barely passing classes to gainfully employed by a Fortune 500 company.

All joking aside, I am a little nervous to go and speak. College kids are weird. They’re all super trendy and techno savvy at the same time. They still think, “No question is a stupid question” and to be quite honest I am afraid of what they are going to ask. What if they ask how many Facebook friends I have? Or how do I feel about MTV bringing back The Jersey Shore for a second season? And if they ask about Excel I am done.

The good news…I am bringing some free stuff along with me. Nothing says “be nice to me” like an armful of goodies…

Our Surprise Dance

I promised to fill you in on our work surprise…we reenacted this today! It was our way of congratulating a co-worker before she left the US to work in Amsterdam. We’ve been secretly practicing for weeks to learn our dance and I wish I could say all of our hard work paid off and we looked just as good as the folks on Oprah, but we didn’t. We looked about as good as a group of non-dancers could look though while trying to keep a straight face. We did have fun.

I’ll post the video when pigs fly it comes across my desk…

Mr. Emergency

Hi guys. How was your Saturday/Sunday combo?

Ours was crazy. In a good way.

One teeny part was crazy in a bad way though. In the two and a half years we’ve lived in the loft this has happened to us twice before. And one can never get used to it...

Right above our bed is a small speaker box. In the event of an emergency a handsome sounding man comes on reporting the emergency and asking everyone to leave the building. On paper this sounds great. A true lifesaver. In real life, however, it’s just mean. From our experience most “emergencies” come in the late night or early morning hours when my live in and I are getting our beauty sleep.

This was the case on Saturday night. We had hit the pillows at 12:45am, just fallen into the sweet sleep, and at 1:15am Mr. Emergency came blaring through the wall. It was total disorientation in our loft. I beat my poor alarm clock pretty badly; in my state of disorientation I confused it for Mr. Emergency. While still in our sleep coma we got out of bed and tried to pull together a decent outfit for public eyes using only the clothes within arms reach. Perhaps you’ve seen an Army or Navy type movie? There’s always a scene where the new recruits are suddenly awoke during the middle of the night and then told to perform a task while being verbally abused by their leader. It’s like that with Mr. Emergency. It’s all we can do put our pants on correctly in that type of environment.

Mr. Emergency takes his job seriously. It’s to wake you out of a dead sleep and give very simple instructions, over and over and over…"There is an emergency in the building. Use the stairway to leave immediately.” {See…I still have it ingrained in my brain.} The problem is this, well there are several problems really, but my main problem with him is this…his volume level. It’s rude. I know for a fact my body was teetering on the verge of a heart attack with his sudden high decibel alarm. I’d also like Mr. Emergency to take the time to point out a few reminders. Such as, if you are super sexy and sleep with a mouth guard or nose strip it might be a good idea to remove those accessories before facing all of your neighbors on the street. He should also remind everyone to bring their wallet, car keys, etc. Because if you believe what’s he’s saying, we’re all on the brink of becoming homeless real soon.

But like always, the Fire Department shows up, announces that somebody burnt their food, and we all parade back into the building. Meanwhile, and still as I write this, I hold back the urge to speak badly on the “cooks” who caused the late night block party. For I know that no one has to stretch their imagination to see this scenario happening to the live in and I.

The next day the live in and I recalled our late night event. We decided that next time Mr. Emergency decides on waking us up, we’ll try and take our wallets. It just seems like a good life decision.